It is only fitting that U.S, authorities brought cuffed, cowed, and criminally charged socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro to a prison in New York.

Maduro is an example to New Yorkers and anyone else watching what socialism can do to a country.

In less than 30 years, Hugo Chavez and his successor Maduro took Venezuela, a once vigorous and prosperous democracy and brought it to its knees.

Once the envy of South America, these socialist dictators turned Venezuela, a one-time open and rich-oil producing country, into a closed police state whose main occupation was shipping drugs to the U.S and other countries around the world.

Turning against the U.S., they also opened Venezuela up to countries like China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, all dictatorships that wish nothing but grief for the U.S., the world’s leading democracy .

Watching the alleged narco terrorist Maduro’s perp walk, New Yorkers can be thankful that newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who opposed the arrest of fellow socialist Maduro, has a term of four years and can only do so much damage.

While exiled Venezuelans around the globe praised Trump for deposing Maduro, who was fraudulently elected in the first place, Mamdani’s Democrat Socialists of America party attacked Trump and  called for Maduro’s release.

But of all the places U.S, agents could have taken Maduro, it is significant that they brought him to Mamdani’s New York, specifically to the “warmth” of the deplorable Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

After all, in his inaugural speech three days earlier, Mamdani vowed to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

If you believe that then you would have loved living in the Soviet Union under Joe Stalin, China under Mao, Albania under Hoxha or Venezuela under Maduro.

It is unfortunate that the arresting authorities did not bring Maduro to Boston. Had they done so, Mayor Michelle Wu and Gov. Maura Healey could have granted him sanctuary and welfare benefits.

The fact of the matter is that it took Donald Trump’s bold “rugged individualism” to capture Maduro and overcome the false narrative of the “warmth” of socialism.

Donald Trump saved Venezuela and will see to it that the country will return to the democracy it once was, prosperous and free.

Only Trump and a remarkable U.S. military, in a stunning operation, could have rousted the criminally indicted Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores out of their Caracas castle and brought them to justice.

It far surpassed the 1989 military action in Panama under President George H.W. Bush to capture the indicted drug kingpin Gen. Manuel Noriega.

That action, called Operation Just Cause, saw 9,000 U.S. troops join 12,000 U.S. military personnel already in Panama to face off with Noriega’s Panamanian Defense Force.

After a week of fighting, which cost the lives of 23 U.S soldiers, Noriega was captured, put on trial, convicted and spent 40 years in prison before dying in captivity.

That is what awaits Maduro.

Unlike Panama, there was no invasion of Venezuela. Instead, the months long and well-planned law enforcement operation to capture Maduro took less than three hours and was a military wonder to behold. No Americans were killed.

The sad part of it all is how hate-crazed Democrats have sided with enemies of the United States in criticizing Trump for bringing an alleged drug lord to justice, halting the flood of drugs into the U.S., restoring Venezuelan democracy, and warding off the malign efforts of Russia, China, Iran and Cuba to destabilize America.

Trump could cure cancer and the Democrats would attack him over the process.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Opponents of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro demonstrate in Doral, Florida, on Sunday. (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA / AFP via Getty Images)